West Norfolk kidnap victim sold stolen goods, jury told

A man who was allegedly kidnapped and assaulted for his suspected role in the death of an elderly woman attempted to sell goods stolen from her home.

Jurors at Norwich Crown Court have also been told that the man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had taken property which belonged to Gertrude Frankham after her death and without the consent of her family.

Seven people are currently on trial accused of being involved in abducting, attacking and blackmailing the man and his partner, whom they suspected of killing and stealing from Mrs Frankham.

And, during cross-examination by defence barrister Greg Perrins, the alleged victim admitted that he had taken property from Mrs Frankham’s garden and a skip placed outside her former home in Walpole St Andrew.

The court heard the items were taken over several weeks in January and February last year. Mrs Frankham, 75, died in December 2012.

He said he was not proud of his actions, but insisted that he had not had an opportunity to seek permission from Mrs Frankham’s family before taking the items.

He also claimed he had thought the items would be disposed of anyway, adding: “As far as I was concerned, it was rubbish.”

But Mr Perrins suggested he had told police that one of the reasons he had not discussed taking the items with any of Mrs Frankham’s relatives was that he was concerned things would “kick off” if he did.

During evidence heard on Friday, it was also revealed that the man had been arrested for, and later admitted to, handling goods which had been stolen from Mrs Frankham’s home.

The jury was told that the man had been visited at his home by a group of three other men who asked him to sell various property on their behalf.

Many of the items were taken to an antiques shop, where the man had given a false account of how he came to be in possession of them.

But he told the jury he had not known the items belonged to Mrs Frankham and only “put two and two together” when he was told that her home had been burgled.

The seven standing trial, who deny all of the charges against them, include Vanessa Frankham, 48, of Wisbech Road, Walpole St Andrew, who is accused of kidnap, blackmail, false imprisonment and robbery.

The same allegations have been brought against Thomas Chilton, 29 and Jason Chilton, 27, of Dades Lane, Wisbech.

Meanwhile, Diane Evans, 18, of Cherry Road, Wisbech, is charged with false imprisonment, while a 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named, is charged with kidnap, false imprisonment and wounding with intent.

Five other defendants have already admitted their involvement in the incident. The trial continues.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Lynn News provides news, events and sport features from the King's Lynn area. For the best up to date information relating to King's Lynn and the surrounding areas visit us at Lynn News regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Lynn News requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.